Most precious gift. Reporter this morning the gift they hope comes from their tragedy. Trying to turn too into something that can be magical, as their sons former classmate is charged in the case. Plus that and social media grilled on capitol hill. Our democracy is rifkd. Reporter is your car too smart . You will be stunned by what it knows about you. And the very tan talented Savannah Guthrie and hoda kotb, everybody. Our late night with jimmy fallon. Why we may seem a little groggy today, thursday, january 18th, 2018. From nbc news, this is today with Savannah Guthrie and hoda kotb live from studio 1 supervise a in rockefeller plaza. Welcome to today. We appreciate you joining us on this thursday morning. Remember that time we were on the tonight show. Request itself. I remember. We told jimmy, if we get up late with you, you will have to come on the today show. He said when we are in korea. He will come on. We will begin with our top story this morning, those surprising comments from white house chief of staff john kelly tied to President Trumps Signature Campaign promise, the wall. Just this morning the president is responding. Nbc news Peter Alexander is at the white house with more on all this. Good morning. Reporter who do, good morning. A rare case where his chief of staff seems to be undercutting the president s own public statements. President trump as youd imagine has something to say about it this morning. It comes as the clock is ticking towards a possible Government Shutdown and the fight over immigration appears stalled. This Morning White House chief of staff john kelly appearing at odds with his box according to a democratic congressman that attended a closed door meeting. He says his campaign was uninformed. Kelly going on to athe u. S. Will never construct a wall along its entire southern border and mexico wont directly pay for it. Overnight on fox news, kelly not denying the comment but appearing to soften his stance. There has been an evolutionary process this president has gone through. I point out to all the members in the room. They all say things during the course of campaigns that may or may not be fully informed. Reporter meanwhile, in the russia investigation, President Trumps attorney ty cobbs telling cbc news in an interview to air friday the president is very eager to streak e sppeak t steve mueller. This comes as steve bannan prepares to come facetoface, according to a source close to bannan who adds the president s former chief strategist plans to answer any question mueller wants to ask. All this in a scramble to avert the Government Shutdown, tomorrow at midfight, mr. Trumps chief of staff remaining optimistic. As i understand i feel fairly confident. Reporter the democrats top democrat signal most in his party are prepared to oppose the shortremember the budget deal. They feel if we kick the can this time, we will be back further where we are next time. So there is very, very strong support not to go along with their deal. Reporter the deal would keep the governments doors opened for another four weeks and would renew the Childrens HealthInsurance Program called chicago it ignores the d. R. E. A. M. Ers, the younger undocumented immigrants protected by the daca program. Both sides already playing the blame game. We have been very clear, we want to see a daca solution but a daca solution has to be a balanced solution. It makes no sense for dra itself to bring to us a shutdown. Reporter democrats control the white house, still they need democratic votes in the senate to keep the government running. President trump making a trip to the hill wednesday as several Top Republicans whose plan he rejected last week pushed forward. Its a painful agreement for us, because both sides had to give a lot. Its a true bipartisan compromise. Reporter still, its unclear where the president stands. Im looking for something that President Trump supports and hes not yet indicated what measure he is willing to sign. Reporter the president early this morning contradicting those comments by his chief of staff, tweeting the wall is the wall. It has never changed or evolved, from the first day i conceived it. Adding the wall will be paid directly or indirectly or longer term reimbursement by members colorado he complicated, arguing against the republican spending bill that exists right now. That Childrens Health insurance should be left out of a shortterm deal. Back to you, hoda, savannah. All right, thanks, peter. Another big story we are following, this winter storm thats paralyzed parts of the south is now being blamed for ten deaths. Al has been watching it closely. Good morning. Bitter cold is gripping a good portion of the country and, in fact, snow, so much snow, down in North Carolina. Its crazy when you see more snow in North Carolina than you do in new england. Some spots in the outer banks upwards of 11to12 inches of snow on those mountains. Right now we got bitter cold out there to talk about. Bob, 30 Million People are under some sort of freeze warning or wind chill advisory that will last at least another 24 hours. Look at the wind chills, it feels 40 in miami, 32 enin tallahassee. 11 in mobile. As you move north, it looks worse, it feels zero in atlanta. An air temperature of 15, atlanta an air temperature of 20. But you will start to see warming. Minneapolis, thats 38. 15 degrees above normal. Denver, tomorrow, washington, you start to warm up. Cooler than average through the southeast. But as we get into the weekend into early next week, temperatures get back to normal, even maybe a little above, temperatures in the 60s and even into the upper 40s by sunday if bosto in boston. Thank you, guys. All eyes on the stockmarket after another record braking close above 26,000 for the first time ever. It was sparked by the relief of stronger than expected Quarterly Results of the Bigger Companies t. Milestone comes seven trading days after the dow hit the once unthinkable 25,000 mark. We talked about Russian Election meddling earlier. That was certainly one of the topics that came up on capitol hill wednesday after high profile testimony after titans in social media. Business correspondent jolene kent has more on that. Good morning. Good morning, guys. Facebook, youtube, twitter, facing off with congressional investigators as pressure is mounting on these companies to make changes to their plafrls to better protect users from extremist content and foreign meddling in the upcoming midterm elections. Facebook is apologizing for what went wrong in the leadup to the 2016 election. On capitol hill, tech giants are facing tough new questions, executives from facebook, youtube and twitter grilled by lawmakers about the threats posed by foreign government, extremist groups and false information. Our democracy is at stake. We need to get it done right and quickly or we may not have a democracy to have you guys up to hear you out. Reporter social media used by isis and al qaeda and governments like russia to peddle propaganda and sew confusion. We work on a daily basis with Law Enforcement, particularly with the fbi. We respond to any requests they have. Reporter its russias social use of meddling thats the greatest threat. How can we know you will get this right and be every the midterms . Reporter facebooks head of Global Policy sat down with nbc news exclusively. We have seen conduct that should not have been on our platform, things that we should have caught earlier. And were sorry that happened. Reporter that apology following our exclusive interview with three silicon insiders who blasted the social network for not taking action. Facebook is a living, breathing crime scene for prapd in the 2016 election. Whats your response to that . Whatever people saw during the 2016 election that was from these russian accounts we now removed, it was unacceptable. Reporter she says facebook hired 7500 people to investigate suspicious content. Its filled with 2 billion users is being questioned. Sarah katz was a part of a post. She reviewed more than 8,000 a seconds per post. Its too much content to keep track of. The more considered the benign content such as news stories are definitely not analyzed perhaps as closely as they need to be. How easy was it for questionable stuff to fall through the cracks . Incredibly easy. Reporter facebook also tells us its deployed 10,000 people to work on security measures regarding your news feed. That number will jump to 20,000 people by the end of this year. Thats an interesting perspective the very person trying to keep track of this. Exactly. Thank you. We have a lot more to get to this morning, including what will be a very rare sight during next months olympic, north and south korea agreeing to have a joint team and march under one flack. Bill neely has that story. Good morning. Reporter good morning, hoda, this is sports history in the making and this will be a powerful emotional moment for the two keyoreas. The united team when there is little unity on anything. But there is worry, too, that all of this complicates a deep nuclear crisis. North and south korea marching together as they will next month under a joint flag. Based on the before and winter summer games. This time it will be different. These handshakes sealing an olympics first, because after they march in the Opening Ceremony, theyll play together, too, in a united womens highs hockey team. Normally they are bitter rivals. The south coach will pick players from both sides. With 230 North Koreans cheering them on. Some southern skiers will even train on the north slopes at a resort we filmed last year. But some in their sights and beyond fear the north will steal the show. Kim jongun hijacking the olympics. South koreas president says a joint team will help reconcile old enemies. Many here in south korea welcome a united team. Elsewhere, there is skepticism about what japan calls north koreas charm offensive. The u. S. And many allies at this summit to tighten sanctions are worried kim is gaining a pr victory and building time for his nuclear program. We will not accept a Nuclear Armed north korea. A united front here that north korea can play Olympic Games but not Nuclear Games with the world. After the winter games, how the north act and how the Nuclear Issue is dealt with, thats when the real games will begin. Reporter President Trump telling reuters wednesday, id sit down with kim jongun but im not sure that sitting down will solve the problem. The Olympic Games are coming here soon. These north korean delegates, the first of over 500 will cross the border in exactly two weeks. So it looks like south korea will get kim jonguns athletes onto the slopes. The big question is, after the olympics, will south korea and the u. S. Get kim to the nuclear negotiating table. Hoda, savannah. All right, bill neely. Thank you. Now to the deadly flu epidemic sweeping across the country. Texass School District has so many out it decided to close for a week. They said that decision came after nearly 300 students and staff called out sick on tuesday. That is almost five times the normal rate and by the way, they are not alone. Its gotten so bad in alabama the governor declared a Public Health emergency. But the state of california has been hit the hardest. At least 42 people under the age of 65 have died in some flurelated symptoms a. Medical tent was set up in the parking lot outside lo melinda center. Also, there are new investigations in the house of horrors in southern california, where a cupsome accused of tortureing their 13 children. We are learning more about how bad that alleged abuse was. Nbc National CorrespondentMiguel Almaguer has the very latest. Good morning. Good morning, some of the investigators say they were tortured for years, subject to abuse unimaginable t. Parents, suspects in this case, will be in court in a few hours a. Warning the details you are about to hear are incredibly disturbing. Reporter as Police Return to what we now know was a torture chamber, new details are emerging over how the 13 children who lived in this home were allegedly abused by their parents. A Law Enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation tells nbc news the victims were allowed to shower just twice a year and fed only one rationed meal per day. They were not being fed and theyre living in these filthy, dirty conditions, thats going to take its toll. Reporter officials already confirming some of the children were shackled to furniture. We now know they are so weak, they are receiving antibiotics, vitamins and nutrition through an iv. So malnourished they could go into shock. Its actually heart breaking for the staff. Reporter the four bedroom, three bath home, a prison for the 13 children held here. The youngest just two. The oldest 29. Their rooms said to be urine filled. There is a special place in hell for people like this. Reporter Police Credit their 17yearold daughter for saving her siblings after escaping through a window and calling 911. Our source says the brave young girl so abused she is said to have the mental capacity of someone well below her age. The children not physically well enough to provide detailed statements. Their parents arrested for torture and child endar dang dangerment,en dangerment. They will be arraigned at 9 00 a. M. We are told they are being held on 9 million bail. Unbearable. Thank you for continuing to report on it. Its important. We turn to al who has the rest of the forecast. All righty. Well, lets show you whats happening around the rest of the country. You can see, we have wet weather coming into the Pacific Northwest. Flurries around the northern plains. But the good news is there is a warming trend coming. Were going to get into your little forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds. The new weights Freestyle Program has over 200 foods that are zero points®. Now you can count less and enjoy more. I freestyle any way i like. Join for free and get one month free hurry, offer ends february 1st good morning. Im meteorologist kari hall. We are starring out with some patchy, dense fog right out in in the south bay visible down to a quarter mile or less in some spots. And then were starting to see the clouds moving into the north bay out ahead of some rain that will be here later this morning and into the afternoon. Well see some off and on rain mainly light and breezy winds. Winds are picking up later on this evening and we will still have some rain in the forecast between tonight and throughout the day off and on tomorrow. And thats your latest weather. Guys. Al, thank you. Coming up, the parents of murder hadded College Student blaze bernstein are speaking out to nbc news about the death of their son and how theyre hoping to use this tragedy to help others. And is your car getting a little too smart . Youll be surprised when we show you the information it could be sharing with everyone from advertisers to police. But first, this is today on nbc. And still still to come, a new rossen reports you need to see before you hit the gym. Youre not going to like it, but those machines youre working out on are not so good. Jeff is busting out the germ meter for this one. And then, will there be a sex city 3 after all . What Sarah Jessica parker is saying about all that. After your local news and weather. Way to test everything. But do they test their babys soap . This paper represents proteins in your babys skin. Ordinary baby soap weakens the proteins. Baby dove bar is different. Only baby dove. With our 1 4 moisturizing cream,. Leaves baby skin more nourished with every bath. The world is not flat. You cant just pinch it or swipe it. Theres a whole world out there and no other card lets you experience it like the platinum card. Backed by the service and security of american express. 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